"Jojo Rabbit" is very pleasing, but also a lot of sarcasm: I think this film is too mediocre. Is it really?
First of all, I have to admit that for those high-end fans who read a lot of movies, their ridicule is not unreasonable. The various symbolic metaphors of "Jojo Rabbit" are indeed a little plain.
For example, the action symbol "Tie Shoelaces" in "Jojo Rabbit" appeared 6 times. Many people understood the first level of interpretation of the symbol of shoelace shortly after the beginning of the movie: it symbolizes the growth of Jojo. There are many easy-to-recognize symbols of this kind, so the self-proclaimed senior fans complain: there is no fun in watching movies.
But the symbol is only part of the movie text. The simple symbols do not mean that the text is not readable; the easy identification of symbols does not mean that you really understand a certain movie. What does that mean?
Just like the reading comprehension in our foreign language test, the meaning of words is often understood, but the meaning of the whole article is very vague. Words are similar to the text symbols we are talking about, and the whole article is the text.
Only deciphering the symbols can only help you understand the story at best, and cannot help you discover what the author behind the story really wants to talk about. If you understand the text, you can say that you really understand the movie.
So back to "Jojo Rabbit", if it is just because the symbols are plain and simple, it would be evaluated as "Jewish Terrier", "Leftist Style", "Formula"... It would be too frivolous, not to mention that there are some symbols in the film. I haven't seen anyone interpret it, such as the painting by Rousseau. If you only understand the symbols in the film , at best, you will only think that the film is about anti-war, anti-Nazi or growing up and other clichés. Only by clearly interpreting the entire text can you know what the most concern of "Jojo Rabbit" is . After tasting it carefully, you will find that "Jojo Rabbit" wants to say a lot.
Closer to home, in fact, as soon as the movie opened, an intriguing question was raised.
First of all, Qiao Qiao told himself that after joining the Youth League today, I will be a man ever since. After some self-encouragement, he rushed out of the room and walked freely through the sunny streets. This is the most powerful Germany. The film quoted a set of documentary scenes: the admiring teenagers looking at the national fighter jets, and the enthusiastic crowd cheering for the leaders, all proclaiming this is a great era.
This is not the director who is satirizing Germany. You must know that before the defeat, Germany not only had perfect military strength, but also the quality of life of its people was far ahead of the world.
Although the Nazi government inevitably adopted some special measures-such as depriving Jewish capital, forcibly shutting down small and medium-sized enterprises, expanding monopoly organizations and state ownership, etc., it took only three years for Germany's unemployment rate to drop to zero, and it was the first to achieve this. With common prosperity, working-class people could even enjoy vacation abroad like management in that era. Material abundance, every family earns money, and everyone has food. This is unique in Europe. Do you still care about what the government uses? Of course not. People think that a good cat can catch a mouse. From Hitler's rise to power in 1933 to 1937, Germany's gross national product increased by more than 100% in the four years, and the people's income also doubled. The Nazis came to power, allowing Germany to create an economic miracle.
Corresponding to the fanatical picture in the documentary, Jojo and his fellow youth team ran through the woods, panning the camera and shooting to show the wildness and speed of the children, suggesting the barbaric growth of Germany. In this way, along with the Beatles' songs and Jojo's running, a picture of relaxed and happy, rich and powerful, slowly unfolded. Then, the title enters.
But please pay attention to the last scene before the title appeared, Qiao Qiao ran and stopped abruptly, letting the friends around him run farther and farther. He couldn't keep up, he slowly raised his head panting, his expression looked unhappy.
He is unhappy? Growing up in a prosperous age, he joined his favorite youth group, and don’t forget that he had not yet met the Jewish girl who had shaken his heart. So, what makes Jojo unhappy? I'm afraid he can't tell it himself.
In fact, pay attention to the title that immediately follows, which is the answer: JOJO RABBIT.
Yes, he is not happy because he is a soft little rabbit. He can't keep up with the national will that is rolling forward, the rabbit can't run and revel like a jackal, he feels tired and unreal.
But the challenges of life will not stop. Just after entering the Youth League training camp, Qiao Qiao was forced to kill a rabbit by the seniors. But Jojo couldn't do it, because he was a rabbit himself, so he had to escape amidst the ridicule of "JOJO RABBIT".
then what should we do? Continue to be a bunny with peace of mind? How did it work, Jojo decided to rise to the challenge and become a qualified member of the youth league, because this is a sign of a mature man. This is true in itself. The growth of a man is indeed accompanied by "strong and bloody". But is a 10-year-old kid who wants his mother's help even to tie his shoelaces, needs to be matured? So my mother said: "You grew up too fast." When a little rabbit forced itself to be a jackal, it was already alienated. It looked like it had grown, but it was actually a deformity.
So we saw that after Qiao Qiao was wounded, he looked at himself in the mirror and expressed feelings of "I am deformed" more than once. The film emphasizes this pun. It is not the appearance, but the deformed soul that really makes Jojo hate him. Of course, he is not to blame, because the deformed person is caused by the deformed environment.
This is why at the beginning of the film, Joe Joe was wounded with ugly scars and a lame leg. In fact, the presence or absence of this plot does not necessarily affect the progress of the story, and the meaning of arranging this paragraph is to incubate the symbol of "abnormal formation".
Regarding Qiaoqiao's deformity, all his mother can do is help him tie his shoelaces, and the outing under the white clouds by the river is the last effort of his mother and the gentlest passage in the whole show. Mom tripped Qiaoqiao deliberately as a prank, what was the purpose?
Mom hoped that Qiaoqiao would run slower, fall down appropriately, look at the scenery along the way, and feel the pain. She told Qiaoqiao: "Pain signifies that you have met love." The female nurse who helped Qiaoqiao stretch also said: "Pain is your friend." The symbol of pain appeared more than once.
Mother hopes Jojo feels pain. Just like my mother desperately hopes that Germany will be defeated, this is not to be unpatriotic, but to let crazy people recover their basic consciousness through injury, so that they can feel the greatest power in their mother's mouth—love.
This "love" is certainly not love in a narrow sense, but a rich emotion born of love. To put it bluntly: Does a person have normal compassion and a basic conscience? Will you cry normally, laugh normally; will you cry for suffering, be ashamed of indifference, and fight for freedom.
Jojo under the influence of Nazi Germany is not a complete person. He has been domesticated by society and lost his normal emotions. But the mother's prediction finally came to fruition. After meeting the Jewish girl, a crack appeared in Jojo's hard shell. He felt pain, depressed, and entangled. When the Jewish girl was dressing up, he was restless, and the butterflies in his belly were about to dance and burst into the closed heart.
In fact, the same is true for girls. She looked at an oil painting on the wall in a dream, thoughtfully. The picture is a tiger. Interestingly, this is a painting by Rousseau. Starting from this painting, the topic of the film began to become deeper and deeper.
The pictures of Qiao Qiao's family hanging next to the oil painting. Qiao Qiao's mother once told her: "Look directly at the Tigers and have unreserved trust." The first meaning is very clear, don't look at everyone like an enemy, tigers are not terrible. The girl relaxed with a smile. Indeed, the tigers in this photo are clearly vivid faces. Through composition and editing, the girl, Joe Qiao, Tiger, and family have realized each other's vision and communication, and also established the sameness-the original spirituality and emotion are lovely.
Especially the meaning of this group of juxtaposed editing is very rich: Qiao Qiaoyu Tiger, Tiger and Girl, Girl Yu Tiger’s Family, Tiger’s Family and Qiao Qiao’s Family, Frame and Window, any two adjacent shots can be intertextualized, true You can take a closer look, so I won’t go into details here.
The girl turned and walked to the record player, and saw that Jojo was busy in the kitchen at this time. This was the most relaxing moment for Jojo and the Jewish girl. They felt the breath of "people" and the long-lost "human life". The ruthless social rules disintegrated in the face of human abundance.
This is exactly the meaning of Rousseau's paintings.
Rousseau's works are well-known for being free from rules. "To experience life with the simplest and most primitive emotions of mankind" is Rousseau's creative philosophy. Therefore, the tiger in the painting has been stripped of the definition of "beast beast" given to it by society. It is just an elf living in the jungle. Just as everyone should be stripped of their political attributes in order to recognize themselves and feel others.
Rousseau once said that his teacher is nature. Therefore Rousseau is also known as the "primitive" painter. He questioned modern human society, not just Rousseau, this is the consensus of the intellectuals. Although an organized society is efficient and stable, it is contrary to human nature. Because of the precise meshing of social gears and the uniform pace of action, people are required to be limited by strict regulations and cut off the parts of themselves that are useless to the social machine. The cut off is the rich and primitive nature of human beings. Although this nature is not conducive to the organization and management of the state apparatus, it is the cornerstone of complex emotions and creativity.
The totalitarian state is the ultimate form of organization, the structure is stable, people are like ants, each perform their duties, and the class is absolutely solidified, which perfectly mimics the collective organization form of the ant society. However, human beings are inherently repulsive from the life of ants and have unique richness. What is richness? Such as imagination, complex emotional feelings, complex logical thinking, etc... Human beings are not born in lines of ants, people are butterflies and need to dance.
But in an authoritarian society that desires order and is overly organized, there is no room for butterflies. So in the face of her mother’s advice, Jojo blurted out: "Dancing is something people who have no job will do." In the eyes of the little Nazis, maintaining the stable operation of this collective is everyone’s first task, and a strong country is the first. Yes, it is shameful to only care about the personal life.
So Jojo, who was concerned about the safety of his country, looked at the encirclement on the strategic map and listened to the captain's explanation. The raisins represented the Americans and the peanuts represented the Russians. Qiao Qiao immediately asked the captain concerned: "Which country is the walnut?" The captain replied: "A walnut is a walnut, child."
Walnuts are walnuts. It's so good to say that dried fruits are dried fruits, and people are people. Don't give too many ideological things-Germanic angels or Jewish demons. It's time for poor Jojo to taste the original taste of life.
But Jojo couldn't taste it, because his situation was no different from that of a Jewish girl. They were all rabbits in cages. What the Jews are imprisoned is the freedom of the body, and what Jojo is imprisoned is the freedom of the soul.
It is more than Jojo and Elsa who are detained. Everyone is a rabbit. Observe the training camp of the Youth League carefully. When the trainees were forced to chant to kill rabbits, when the female team members were told that it was their duty to give birth to the country, and when the group burned books, the captain stared at the fire suspiciously. There was no one. Really happy.
And as long as the Jojos put down their scruples and cheered for the burning of the book, they would have the right to eternal happiness. Just like the lyrics: "A person who is uneducated is not sad."
But in fact, there is a sentence at the end of the lyrics, "He will be sad too."
Because you think you are guarding a strong and stable country, but in fact this society puts you in a cage instead. Being imprisoned is not the most terrifying thing, the most desperate thing is not knowing it.
Recalling Jojo, who was out of breath, when the material life was rich but bored for some reason, all he could feel was exhaustion and emptiness. This is a chronic poison that will eventually kill you.
So, how to choose a powerful country and a butterfly? Someone has said, where does the butterfly come from without a powerful country? Isn’t it the same to ask, is a power without butterflies really strong?
Comparing with the opening, let's look at the ending. Germany is defeated, the city is depressed, and the prosperity is no longer. Germany is no longer the most powerful country, but Jojo smiled, and the film stopped abruptly.
For Qiaoqiao at this time, happiness does not care about whether the collective is strong. And a strong country cannot be equated with its own happiness.
A truly powerful country should accommodate butterflies. Who doesn't want to have a butterfly and a powerful country at the same time? And when the power and the butterfly cannot have both, I think that Joe and Joe will definitely choose the butterfly.
Remember to follow me ≧▽≦
Strive for the year to change, the month to change, the month to change, the day to change...
＞﹏＜
View more about Jojo Rabbit reviews
